NewCityMovement

FriendsWithYou Have Powers!

Fusing art, design, illustration and toy making, Miami based FriendsWithYou are a leading example of a multi-disciplinary studio combining classical disciplines with sensational success. They are masters not only of character creation but beyond the characters themselves and into the worlds that they inhabit. Their universes are so elaborately designed that they entrance adults and children alike.

A book of a design by FriendsWithYou (FWY), "FriendsWithYou Have Powers!" will be released early in October. FWY is well known for producing their original dolls, also continuing activities in a variety of areas; participating in conferences, and working for interior design. This book presents the full scope of their projects and a wide range of scribbles, designs, artworks, characters and kids toys which have been created, for their first museum exhibition at the MOCA Miami, Florida during Art Basel Miami Beach. [Via: Die Gestalten]

What's A Scopitone?

A Scopitone is a "Film Jukebox" invented in France in the early 1960's (from surplus World War II airplane parts!) and also the films (the precursors of todays music videos) which played on it. [Thanks Roth]

Night Stalker, Street Walker This Saturday

The mix from our last party in September is now online here. Also, enjoy this list of random things to dream about before 'Night Stalker, Street Walker' this Saturday:

Heat, Black Fishnet, Metallics, Boogie-Men/Women, Tijuana Black Panther Velvet Painting, Animal Print, Flashers, Jon Benet, Fosse Style aka "All That Jazz", Noir Effect, Down & Out (Jerry Blank), Hand-Set, Telephone, Backlit Windows i.e. Red Light District, Menacing Hand Carved Wooden Puppets, Trapped, Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation, Lost Tourists, Little Devils, Kraftwerk, Pools Of Blood, Long Pretty Hair, Zippers... Everywhere, Good Morning Utah, Dark Alley, Revolving Door, Stiletto High Heel, Flashlights, "Pose Sexy", Bad Habits, Self-Defense, Sad Clown.

JUST WANNA DANCE - NIGHT STALKER, STREET WALKER
Saturday, October 28th
Venue: W. Lounge, 358 South W. Temple, SLC UT
$5, Free before 10:30pm

Salt Lake City Weekly Features Just Wanna Dance

Just Wanna Dance is featured in the current issue of S.L. Weekly. We want to thank Jamie Gadette for interviewing us and the great write-up, as well as Dave Tada for the uncredited photo.

Regarding the article, a quick apology to anyone who might be offended by my poor characterization of I Love Ibiza as a bunch of "slutty girls, hooking up". We clearly have positive opinions about this rival party and could have found a better way to differentiate their more primal, sexual angle from JWD's campy crowd of misfits. Andy Callaway of I Love Ibiza and I are in agreement that we're both just trying to promote solid House music in different ways. His upcoming Halloween party with guest Pablo Ceballos this Friday at The Hotel should be rockin' and I highly recommend it. Details are at http://www.ILoveIbiza.us/. Details are at ILoveIbiza.us.

Handbags Of Horror

Scary handbags matched up with their horror film contemporaries. [Via: TMN]

Gold Lamé Hot Pants Back In Production!

Praise Allah! Gold Lamé hot pants, along with other assorted rollerdisco-wear has been put back into production by the almighty American Apparel.

Where Do Power Strips Come From?

The Containership Powersupply is a small reminder of the unequal scale of consumption between China and the rest of the world. It's also a rad looking power strip.

All Politicians Are Crooks

Watch this adorably catchy song and video by Spanish group The Pinker Tones.

I'm Hot, Sticky Sweet, From My Head To My Feet Yeah!

I picked pineapples on a slave labor farm for boys in Hawaii when I was teenager. Maybe that's why I am inexplicably attracted to this giant sinister looking pineapple by artist Toby Ziegler on view now at the Simon Lee Gallery in London.

Mysteries Revealed

Since I mentioned one of my favorite radio stations KCRW in the last post, it makes sense to point out that my old friend Ryan Raddon, better known as Kaskade has an interview/DJ set with Raul Campos on Nocturna.

He's made a jump from long time San Francisco record label OM, where he started out as and A&R guy, to NY's Ultra for this latest outing called "Love Mysterious". Present still are the signature catchy hooks and melodic vocals but he's added more gloss to the overall production and pumped it up a bit for the "big room", as he put's it. All eleven tracks feature guest vocalists.

Ryan helped me get my first residency at the legendary Manhattan Club (Incedentally titled NewCity) and was kind enough to mix down my first promo CD years ago, so it's fun to hear his voice on the radio and learn about his worldwide touring and the new album. He's a smart and talented guy who deserves all his hard earned success.

You can listen to the interview with 'Kaskade' here and if you live in Utah you can catch him live with BT and DJ Ebenflow at The Depot on November 18th.

So What If I Heard It On NPR?

I have been going through a music renaissance of sorts trying to seek out any classical music that I really want to listen to. In my mind exists this abstract idea of myself listening to 'classy' music when I'm older and cannot bear the weight of keeping up with cultural extremes and the like. I already have an appreciation for piano from the years of lessons I had taken by me as a kid (Thank You Mummy & Daddy!) but finding something that speaks to me personally in a genre that has been around since we discovered bows and arrows is like trying to come up with an appropriately cheesy metaphor to complete this sentence.

I've found our city library to be of great help on the subject yet, my lackidasical pursuit hadn't uncovered anything truly exciting. That is until a few weeks ago when I heard someone delightfully tackling the ivory keys on my sometimes favorite L.A. based radio station KCRW. Come to find it's a Venezuelan pianist by the name of Gabriela Montero.

Allmusic states:

Montero started improvising at the piano at age four; ...gave her first public performance at the age of five; three years later, she made her concerto debut with the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra Simon Bolivar. At age eight, she received a scholarship from the Venezuelan government to study in the United States and proceeded to win several youth competitons there. Ultimately, it was at London's Royal Academy of Music, where she studied in her twenties with Hamish Milne, that she received what she calls her "most important training."

...and her website biography reads:

Gabriela Montero’s first EMI/Angel CD consisted of one disc of music by Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Liszt and a second of her deeply-felt and technically brilliant improvisations. Standing alongside inspired performances of core repertoire, improvisation plays as important a part in Gabriela's life as it did for Bach and Mozart and, to show the link, her latest EMI/Angel CD Bach and Beyond is a full disc of improvisations on themes by Bach.

Gabriela has appeared with orchestras across the world from South America and the USA, Europe, to Japan and the Far East and she recently made her debut with the New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel. Anthony Tommasini writing in the New York Times commented that "Ms Montero's playing had everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power in climactic moments, soulful lyricism in the ruminative passages and, best of all, unsentimental expressivity".

I found much of the prodigious acclaim to ring true as I now own two of her latest works, Gabriela Montero: Piano Recital and Bach and Beyond, both on EMI and couldn't be happier with her performances which are nothing short of awe inspiring. I think the improvisational spirit of her playing is what makes these sometimes stuffy (albeit brilliant) works feel like fresh and beautiful music to my oh so tired ears.

If Montero peaks your interest, you should listen to this archived interview from NPR's All Things Considered (Realplayer).

In addition to Montero, a few other artists/albums that I can recommend trying are, Gonzales "Solo Piano" (No Format/Universal), a record full of gentle, intricate and flowing "Satie-esque" piano instrumentals that could be the soundtrack to a forgotten silent film; Ludovico Einaudi & Ballaké Sissoko "Diario Mali" (Ponderosa), which features an intricate yet subtle fusion of piano and African strings and anything by the medieval minded Jordi Savall or French 'phonometrician' Eric Satie. All go perfectly with some intoxicating tea on a cloudy morning for moments of noble introspection.

Last Night We Got Tired Of Being Sexy

I was thrilled to catch one of my favorite new bands of late Cansei de Ser Sexy (Tired Of Being Sexy), also known as CSS here last night in SLC opening for the razor sharp Ladytron.

The description at Wikipedia sums them up well: CSS are a Brazilian based band from the city of São Paulo. The group mixes influences of pop music, rock & roll, electronica and other kinds of art, like design, cinema and fashion, putting the blend in humorous lyrics in English and Portuguese. The band is notorious for their emphasis on style, fashion and coolness, rather than musical ambitions. Their broken English compositions are sung with a strong and charming Brazilian accent, which just adds a special appeal to the band.

All I can say is CUTE! CUTE! CUTE! ...SUPERCUTE!!! I don't care if everyone but the drummer are outsider musicians, they can rock my boat anytime. Full of wild energy, they let it all hang loose with the hungry, early bird crowd at The Depot, finishing off their set with a daring crowd surf by lead singer Lovefoxxx. So gracious to adoring fans, they greeted people at their sales table after performing where I was able to meet them in person. Lovefoxxx and bass player Ira were quite taken with the idea of Just Wanna Dance and took the time to not only inscribe one of our JWD flyers with "I love CSS so much!, Muah! I Wanna Dance Too!", but also draw something exxxtra special on a copy of their latest album for me! Using the letters in CSS to spell out Je-SS-e, it reads, "Muah! Lovefoxxx. THIS IS THE RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT!"

Keep it real CSS, we XXX U 2 here at NCM/JWD! Visit the official CSS website here.

Squatters East

Having a room mate that works for the local brewpub giant Squatters means I'm lucky enough to get invited to all their new restaurants before officially opening to the public. The most recent being Squatters Roadhouse Grill (formerly the Mountain Air Café) located at 1900 Park Ave. in Park City.

It's a clean and simple interior as you can see, but they should make a killing in P.C. serving good beer and reasonably priced food to the bourgeois.

Welcome To Trentemøller's Last Resort

"The Last Resort" - Anders Trentemøller's much anticipated debut-album is finally here and it's a decidedly downtempo recording. Anders says “I have always made all kinds of music. In the studio, I never think about which genre it is or what target group it is for, I just make the music I feel like. What came out of the recording sessions for ‘The Last Resort’ was a very personal album. It reflects my life, my thoughts, my needs, my insecurities, my longings, and it was a challenge, he to express these feelings and moods without words, only with music.”

Progressive-Sounds.com reports: It’s for this reason why he decided not to put the two vocal tracks he recorded during the ‘Last Resort’ sessions on the final album. ‘Always Something Better’ (featuring Richard Davis and the first single to be taken from the album) and ‘Moan’ (with Copenhagen-singer Ane Trolle) are featured on a second bonus disc of the limited edition version of of the album. The second CD nicely complements the first one, not only because of the two vocal songs, but also because it contains all the great tracks Trentemøller produced last year for Audiomatique and Poker Flat.

“When I listened to the final sequence of tracks, it felt as if I was listening to the soundtrack of a movie that unfolded before my eyes. For me it was important that the music would tell the story.“

What the press is saying:

Trentemoller is not only a dance floor genius, but a musical mastermind in the broader sense. Killer release! (DJ Times)

His debut long player is excellent, fusing live instrumentation, detailed production and is the best electronica album so far of 2006 (better than Nathan Fake’s effort). (Touch, UK)

If you‘re prepared to journey with the Danish producer as he achieves his desire to transcend techno‘s confines and inhabit some kind of freeform world, you‘ll love this debut. (DJ Mag)

The album is simply beautiful, and will likely surprise many of his fans, not only because of the dominance of sweet melodies, but the loads of acoustic instruments like guitars, live drums, glockenspiel, melodica, etc. The album doesn‘t completely leave out the dance-floor - there are a few hypnotizing jams on the record - but it makes for a great at-home listen, something many electronic producer-albums cannot pull off. (Music For Robots, USA)

"The Last Resort" is such a great atmospheric, almost unreal album. It‘s the perfect dream with its mixture of Dub-Tech, Shoegazing-Ambient and clicking soundscape. (Groove)

I think the new Trentemoller album is outstanding. Such an expressive and emotive album with great flow and subtle contrast that keeps you involved and entranced. (Radio Magnetic, Scotland)

"The Last Resort" makes the listener work, but think of this as a more accessible Aphex Twin, or a funkier Boards Of Canada. (4/4 Mixmag, 10.2006)

Genious and visionary! (Intro)

Trentemøller might be hyped out but this album is just great. (Spex)

More at Poker Flat Recordings.

V&R vs. H&M

Although I was not wowed by their recent star studded Spring collection and do not find myself quite as in love with Rufus Wainwright as they apparently are, Viktor & Rolf are still two of my favorite fashion designers who can do no wrong. The unambiguously gay Dutch duo been the latest to team up with Swedish based H&M following in the footsteps of Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney to create a one-time collection of affordable women's and men's wear. Most pieces like this superspy men's trench coat are under $100 excluding a special wedding dress created for around $400 and will debut on September 9th in stores worldwide.

"If Haute couture is the most sublime form of fashion, H&M is fashion at its most democratic. Our roots are based in couture. It’s the heart and soul of our work. But we also love to play with opposites: transformation is a key element of our signature style. For us, fashion is an antidote to reality. It’s a great opportunity to communicate our vision with such a large audience of H&M devotee." say the designers Viktor & Rolf.

For details visit the V&R blog or H&M. (Thanks for the tip Yangabang!)